•  
  •  
 

Corresponding Author

Gad, Mohamed

Subject Area

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Expanding the reclamation of new lands within the unlimited desert area of Egypt has started to face the continuous growth of population and the urgent need for food security. The reclamation of the Nile valley's desert fringes affects its traditional cultivated areas as a result of the difference in the topographic level, inadequate drainage system and the existence of shallow depth clay lenses beneath these sites which creates a perched condition that helps greatly in fasting the rising rate of water table. The present paper threw light on a trial to mitigate the waterlogging problem due to the reclamation activities in the high-land desert fringes of Beni Suef and El-Minya governorates. The reclamation area was increased by 250% through the interval 1984-2001 as detected from the processed satellite images. The topographic feature of the reclaimed area reached 6 cm/km as detected from Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Two proposed scenarios for mitigation of waterlogging problem were checked by using groundwater flow model in two spatial dimensions (ASM). Draining the water excess using suitable dewatering design is proposed as a first scenario to mitigate the problem. The proposed design has been tested and calibrated using mathematical modeling techniques under the present pumping conditions (583 m3 /h in summer and 375 m3/h in winter) with increase in magnitude 0.08 m/sec through ten proposed dewatering-wells well distributed in the low-land logged area. The results showed that the losses from the logged area reached 0.048 m3/sec after 100 days which approaches 36% of the average annual supplemented groundwater. So, the third of the supplemented groundwater abstractions can be saved when reusing the dewatering quantity in irrigation. The second scenario proposed the construction of four experimental biological-drainage farms in the most deteriorated areas with evapotranspiration consumption process of 0.118 m3/sec. The second short-term proposed scenario is considered more adequate since the drainage of the pumped water during dewatering process is still a problem, Improvement of drainage techniques, minimizing irrigation rate and replacing the present flooding irrigation method used in the surrounding cultivated lands by another suitable dripping techniques are recommended for mitigation of waterlogging problem. The reuse of drainage water will decrease the groundwater demand. The decrease of irrigation openings diameter and the increase of lifting stations' efficiency will contribute in mitigation process.

Download

Share

COinS